Friday, May 04, 2012

5 men arrested in Cleveland area bridge bomb plotLaw enforcement officials
arrested five men, Connor Stevens, Anthony Hayne, Brandon Baxter, Joshua
Stafford, and Douglas Wright, for plotting to blow up the Ohio 82
bridge over the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The bridge also links
Brecksville and Sagamore Hills.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Self-proclaimed anarchists
text messaged a four-digit code into a cellular phone Monday night,
expecting to detonate eight packs of plastic explosives strapped to a
concrete abutment of a much-traveled bridge spanning the Cuyahoga River, federal officials charged Tuesday.
The five men waited at an unspecified location near the Ohio 82
bridge between the suburban communities of Sagamore Hills and
Brecksville, FBI agents said, hoping to hear the boom and watch the
smoky collapse of the pillars.

But there was no explosion, no bridge collapse, and by Tuesday
afternoon, the five men were in shackles and leg irons, appearing in
U.S. District Court on federal terrorism charges that reference possible
attacks on other landmarks, including Cleveland’s Federal Reserve Bank.

At a news conference, U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach identified the
men as members of a radical fringe of the Occupy Cleveland group, a
national movement formed to protest corporate greed and home
foreclosures.

Dettelbach said all evidence points to the five suspects acting
alone, without the sanction of other mostly non-violent Occupy members.

“Let me be clear, the FBI and Department of Justice are not
conducting an investigation of any specific group,” he said. “We do not
investigate movements or groups, we investigate individuals.”
Here is how Dettelbach and the FBI say they foiled the plot.

For nearly seven months, a confidential informant who had penetrated
the group’s inner circle, secretly recorded meetings in which they
plotted mayhem against symbols of corporate America in greater
Cleveland. The unidentified informant reported back to the FBI.

Douglas Wright, 26, of Indianapolis, took the lead from the start,
according to a 21-page affidavit filed by the lead FBI agent on the
case. The suspects started by thinking small, with plans to topple the
signs of banks from atop downtown Cleveland skyscrapers. The plot
included a diversionary tactic of smoke bombs exploded on the Veterans
Memorial Bridge.

Wright, alias Cyco, and the confidential informant were later joined
by Brandon Baxter, 20, of Lakewood, Anthony Hayne, 35, of Cleveland,
Joshua Stafford, 23, of Cleveland, and Connor Stevens, 20, of Berea.
They attended Occupy Cleveland protests in attempts to recruit
like-minded anarchists, but were unsuccessful, according to the
affidavit.

Their plots were willy-nilly, ranging from schemes to blow up the
Cuyahoga County Justice Center, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland,
the I-480 bridge in Valley View, and a cargo ship before settling on the
Ohio 82 bridge, according to federal documents. (See the DocumentCloud
viewer below to read the documents in their entirety.)

Other potential targets included the abandoned streetcar tunnels
beneath downtown Cleveland, a Cuyahoga County Homeland Security
operation called the Northeast Ohio Regional Fusion Center, an
unidentified Ku Klux Klan location in Ohio, and the new Horseshoe Casino
on Public Square.
But all were eventually discounted for a variety of reasons.

The gang’s bible, officials said, was the “Anarchist Cookbook,” a
1970 how-to book on building bombs using household items and dealing
with police during riots. They also devised ways to cover their tracks
electronically, and obtained computer programs they hoped would destroy
their trail of Internet searches.

On March 22, the confidential informant met with Wright at an unidentified location.
“Tell me what all we need to make the bombs so that we can start
gathering -” the informant is quoted in the affidavit as saying.
“Mainly bleach,” Wright replied.
“Bleach?” the informant said.
“You can make plastic explosives with bleach.”

Enlarge
Marvin Fong, The Plain Dealer
View of the Ohio 82 bridge that links
Brecksville and Sagamore Hills, photographed, Monday, May 1, 2012. The
bridge is reflected by the Cuyahoga river. Five men were arrested for
plotting to blow up this bridge. (Marvin Fong /The Plain Dealer)Bridge Bomb Plot gallery (3 photos)

Six days later, while driving across the I-480 bridge, Baxter asked, “How much do we need to take out a bridge?”

Rather than make their own bombs, the group eventually opted to buy
C-4, a plastic explosive, plus bullet-proof vests and gas masks, for
$800. What they didn’t realize was that the seller was an undercover FBI
agent and the two bombs were fakes - inert devices constructed to look
like the real thing, with wires, switches, and detonators that could be
triggered by a call from a cell phone.
“The defendants went to the bridge last night,” Dettelbach said at a
Tuesday morning news conference. “The defendants planted the explosives
at the base of a busy bridge. The defendants went to an off site
location to arm the explosives, and the defendants then entered a code
they thought would blow that bridge up.”

Dettelbach said the arrests show the evolving nature of terrorism the FBI is confronted with today.
“This case demonstrates that the threat we face is a diverse one,” he
said. “That terrorism can come in many hues and from many homelands.”

At their court appearances, the suspects spoke in one- or two-word answers.

U.S. Magistrate Greg White found them all indigent and appointed them
lawyers. They will be held without bond until at least Monday.

“Love you, Connor," shouted James Stevens, father of suspect Connor
Stevens, as federal marshals led the group away. Stevens' sister cried
in the back of the courtroom.

Debbie Kline, of Cleveland’s Jobs with Justice, coordinated with the
Occupy Cleveland on a number of protests and community actions. On
Tuesday, she called the involvement of the five bombing suspects as
“fringey”

Baxter, she said, had recently attended a training session on
non-violent action. Kline said he seemed young and could have been
impressionable.

“I wonder who else was pulling the strings of those in the group,” she said.

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